


I Miss Our Talks

by winter_rogue



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Genderfuck, always-a-girl!Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 23:25:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_rogue/pseuds/winter_rogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Stiles wouldn’t recognize a girl trying to woo him, but to be fair, Deitra was terrible at it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Miss Our Talks

**Author's Note:**

> angst_bingo fill for "courtship rituals"

“Oh god, okay, that’s yes! So we’re taking off our shirt now, that’s great, I’m just going to look, uh--”  
  
“Stiles! Will you give me a hand here please.”  
  
“Wha-- a hand are you sure-- holy shit that’s a lot of blood!”  
  
“Yes, now get the hell over here and help me.”  
  
“Right. Shit. No, I’ve got it, it’s okay you can do-- you can dig the bullet out with your fingers, yup. That’s great, this is exactly the way I always wanted to...”  
  
If she wasn’t in the middle of sticking her fingers into her own side, Deitra might have pursued that line of thought. Then again, she probably would have just ignored it, injury or no injury.   
  
But she didn’t miss the way Stiles couldn’t entirely keep his eyes from skipping over the plane black fabric of her bra and then the rest of her skin where her left side wasn’t entirely covered in blood and dirt. The way his eyes dropped down to the bare arch of her hipbone and then away again. He was red with a guilty flush, but the pressure against the knife wound in her shoulder didn’t waver.  
  


#

  
She shoves him over and makes room for herself to sit on the McCall sofa. Stiles sputters indignantly, getting chip crumbs everywhere before he settles back down. The rest of the pack spreads out around them and no one else tries to squeeze onto that particular piece of furniture.   
  
Halfway through Shaun of the Dead, she sticks her stocking feet under his thigh and leaves them there; her toes are cold. Stiles stiffens. It takes him almost ten minutes but finally he relaxes again and is wise enough not to pick a fight about it.  
  
It’s good.  
  


#

  
  
He still jumps about two feet in the air every time she surprises him, jumping through his bedroom window.  
  
“I swear, I’m going to buy you a freaking bell! Or something.”  
  
She bares her teeth in a grin and enjoys the way he rolls his eyes instead of flinching.  
  
“And what can I help your Alpha-ness with today?”  
  
She tosses a crudely wrapped package at him. “You wanted to know more about faeries.”  
  
“Dude, voluntarily sharing information? Is this actual voluntary knowledge sharing? I’m touched.” He tears off the paper and thumbs through the book. It’s old and more than a little mouldy; she’d found it in a pile of trash in the old house. Swept up and forgotten by some fireman probably, along with the detritus of her life. She thought maybe Stiles could find a use for it.   
  
He glances up at her. “No, I’m serious, thanks.”  
  
She nods her head and falls back onto his bed. Stretched out on her back, staring up at the plain white of his ceiling, the sound of Stiles’ breathing a few feet away and the periodi swish of pages being turned. It’s relaxing. Soothing almost. In a way that she can allow her eyes to slip shut against the late afternoon sunlight where it’s setting behind the houseline of Beacon Hills.  
  
Deitra allows herself a little moment to just be.  
  


#

  
He hugged her once. Just the once. After they put a gnarly ghoul to rest. She hadn’t been expecting it and it’s been an embarrassingly long time since anyone’s touched her like that. He catches her completely flat footed, arms trapped at her sides and it’s over before she figures out how to respond.  
  
And if it makes her skin too hot and her stomach feel all squirmy, well, it’s not like even werewolf sense can suss that out. She doesn’t have to share with anyone how it makes her feel.  
  


#

  
She finds out about Kira on a Thursday. Because Scott has a big mouth apparently and asks Stiles if he’s taking Kira out tomorrow night? in the middle of a pack meeting. And she breaks the handle of the coffee mug she’s holding when she forgets her own strength.  
  
“Dude, it’s okay, I can get my own coffee!” Stiles interrupts Scott, taking the broken ceramic out of her hands and skirting around her into the kitchen.  
  
“Leave it. And don’t call me dude,” she grits out at him. And she doesn’t watch him for the way he frowns at her, like she’s somehow said something disappointing.  
  


#

  
After that she stops climbing through his window. According to Isaac, “Kira” is nice and a little geeky and she makes Stiles laugh in history and during lunch and in the halls and--  
  
Well, climbing through his window is just inappropriate.  
  


#

  
They’re a handful of months away from graduation when a small, rival pack tries to make tracks into her territory.  
  
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Stiles says to her back. His footsteps are loud, despite his best efforts and she can’t remember how he talked his way into being put on the patrol roster, let alone how they wound up doing the rounds together. Deitra suspect’s Erica’s hand in this.  
  
“If I did something, you should just come out and say it. Look, I’m sorry, okay? But this silent treatment-- this more silent than usual treatment-- is...”  
  
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” she gets out and she can hear him huff in disbelief. “I see you every single week Stiles.”  
  
“I’m not talking about pack meetings!” he protests, his voice slipping higher at the end as his foot slips. He’s inches away from a hard landing but she’s already catching him, one hand tight on his shoulder and the other on his wrist. He’s warm and firm beneath her hands. “Thanks,” he breaths.  
  
Deitra lets him go like he’s one fire. “Be careful.” And forces herself not to look back.  
  


#

  
They have pack movie night after the rogue pack is dealt with and driven off. Only this time she and Stiles sit at opposite sides of the sofa and she forces herself not to touch him. Not to invade his space and rub off all the other she can smell on him.   
  
The guys pushed for an Alien movie marathon, which they all promptly fell asleep during. Deitra’s staring at the way the light flickers ghostly across the soft faces of her betas and their humans. Her pack. And her eyes stray to Stiles, the way his soft looking mouth falls open and he can’t help drooling a little. And she wishes she didn’t want that so much. Because there is nothing in that image that she should want so desperately that it’s an ache not to run through the dark and slip through his window and curl up next him just to listen to him typing or turning pages or fucking breathing.  
  
“I wish I could--” she whispers but stops. What? Keep him? She shakes herself and climbs carefully to her feet to turn off the television screen.  
  


#

  
She finds out about-- well-- on a Saturday when Stiles storms into her apartment (small, two bedrooms for her and Isaac, meticulously tidy and convenient to the rest of the pack).  
  
“Is there something you want to say to me?” He asks, flushed and breathing a little hard. His heartbeat is erratic.  
  
Deitra’s sprawled across her couch in a ratty tanktop and a pair of sweatpants that are a little too long in the leg; they’d been Laura’s. Sure, okay, she just didn’t feel like getting out of her pajamas today. It’s Saturday, that’s allowed. It’s not like she has any plans to go anywhere today.  
  
She stares and him because she figures if she waits long enough he’s bound to answer his own question, or at least fill in a couple of the blanks.  
  
“Damnit. Will you just--” he rakes his hands through his hair in obvious frustration. She doesn’t know what he wants. “Don’t just at me like I’m a crazy person.”  
  
She can’t help the sarcastic snort because he does look like a crazy person right now.  
  
“Do you have any idea what-- your betas-- okay, except for Scott-- all of your betas have been like making sad faces at me. And sighing! And they keep talking about-- I mean Erica asked me how long I planned to keep punishing you? In front of my girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend, but she was still, you know, at the time of said conversation. Just, what?”  
  
Deitra frowns and sits up. Lying around like a lump is probably not the best way to deal with whatever this clusterfuck her pack had started.  
  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says carefully. She can make a few guesses but she’d rather not; but this is why Boyd is her favorite. Leave it to Erica to-- to--   
  
“Great!” Stiles exclaims, waving his hands around, “that makes two of us. But maybe you could make an educated guess why your pack is giving me collective Disappointed Face? Even Jackson.”  
  
“I don’t--” she starts to protest when something he said catches her attention. “What do you mean, ‘ex’?”  
  
“What do you think I mean? Ex, as in, no longer.” And this seems to bring him down a notch. He sticks his hands into his pockets where they can’t add emphasis to every word. “She broke up with me.”  
  
And she wishes this news didn’t make her heart trip over double time, but it does.  
  
“I’m not punishing you,” Stiles mutters, “you’re the one avoiding me, remember? Do you think you could, I don’t know, make that clear to them?”  
  
She opens her mouth to protest, feeling a bit guilty and stupidly relieved and childish all at the same time. Stiles looks frustrated and confused, he’s waiting for her to say that she will do that maybe, or to explain her beta’s actions. Give him something but she’s caught with her hands fisted in the worn material of her dead sister’s pants and she’s used to feeling guilty, but not simultaneously so relieved and that just makes the feeling worse.  
  
He sighs stiffly and leaves before she thinks of what to say.  
  


#

  
“Stop harassing Stiles,” she orders them over dinner.   
  
“You know, I actually feel bad about hating her but I have to hate her. On principle,” Erica muses with her mouth full of peas and rice. “She was actually pretty nice.”  
  
Deitra tries to remain silent, but she can’t stop the words from coming out of her mouth, “Why did they break up?”  
  
Isaac shifts around in his seat and doesn’t exactly look disappointed, but it’s a close thing. “She’s going out of state for school next year. And he isn’t.”  
  
This is the first she’s heard about Stiles’s plans for college and it makes the squirmy relieved feeling in her gut expand. She’d been too nervous to ask before and then after-- well, Stiles is right, she had been avoiding him.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Yup,” Boyd confirms and passes Erica more peas.  
  


#

  
“I was avoiding you.”  
  
Stiles doesn’t jump, even though it’s been months since she appeared like this. His face is curiously blank. Now it’s him waiting. She puts one foot onto his floor, then the other. She has to look at him, she has to talk.  
  
“I tried-- but then you, shit.”  
  
Growing up, she and Laura had looked nearly identical. They’d been less than two years apart in age and joined at the hip. Same straight nose, same grey green eyes, same dark brown hair. But Laura had been the talker, the one good with people. And Deitra had prefered it that, enjoyed hiding just a little bit in her big sister’s shadow.  
  
But she doesn’t want to be a coward. Not anymore. Because this is really fucking important and she’s afraid if she gets it wrong she-- no, she knows that if she gets it wrong there will be another girl or boy who makes him laugh and smile and geeks out with him and--  
  
“I like you,” she blurts and feels a little like she’s choking. She runs a hand through her hair. “That’s it, and I thought, since you were seeing someone it wasn’t right if I... kept showing up all the time. That all.” It’s, god, talking about feelings and motivation and about ten times harder than slitting her last living relative’s throat.   
  
She doesn’t want to look at his face but she has to so she drops her hand and Stiles’s face is still curiously blank. He hasn’t moved at all. For once, hasn’t said a word. He’s just still there, reading the stupid book she gave him about faeries.  
  
Deitra spins on her heel and is about ten second away from climbing right back out the window.  
  
“Wait!” Stiles finally says. “Hold on, no way do you drop that bombshell and just run away. What do you mean, you like me?”  
  
She throws up her hands, embracing the aggravation, it doesn’t make her feel weak like the rest of it does. “What do you think it means? I like you! Okay? I said it! And I told the pack to get off your back about it. I have no idea why they were making it a -- a thing in the first place and I’m sorry!” And it’s possibly the most she’s said in one breath in-- years. Stiles looks shocked, and then he starts to grin and it’s disbelieving but also sort of smug around the edges.  
  
“Oh shut up,” she complains and closes the distance between them, hauls him out of his chair and-- very carefully-- pushes him into the wall. “Is this clear enough?”  
  
“I think maybe you just want a personal fulltime footwarmer,” but his breathing is a little too quick and she can smell his arousal.  
  
And really, the only thing she can do is cover his mouth with her own and stick her tongue down his throat.   
  
END


End file.
